"The new Polish right and the EU"

McManus-Czubinska, Clare. (2003) "The new Polish right and the EU" . In European Union Studies Association (EUSA) > Biennial Conference > 2003 (8th), March 27-29, 2003, pages 20, Nashville, TN.

Abstract

The Polish election of 2001 marked the reconstruction of the Polish right in parliament, the exit of the former governing parties and the entry of four new parties into parliament including, for the first time, some openly Eurosceptic parties. There is some debate amongst academics and journalists about the character of these new parties. This paper looks at how the Polish people themselves characterized the new parties, how they placed them on a left-right scale, and how far they sympathized with them--even if they did not actually vote for them. Although some academic commentators have argued that Europe was not an important issue in that election, our survey suggest that the "most important" issues had little impact on sympathies for either old or new parties, while Europe had a strong impact-yet for essentially pragmatic rather than cultural or nationalist reasons.